College tuition is expensive and requires serious commitment to the financial investment. This professor holds my interest and I appreciate the trouble he takes to present these podcasts. They enlighten antiquity. Thank you.
His perspective is very common in our modern age, believing all religions are more or less superstitions based on arbitrary concepts. However if you read the ancient texts such as Plutarch's "The Obsolescence of the Oracles" or simply Google "The Death of Pan" you start to wonder if the ancient world really did change tremendously at the time of Christ (justifying the BC/AD split). In Pliny the Younger's letter to Trajan he remarks with alarm that the people have abandoned the pagan temples and ancient rites are no longer being practiced. Why? Perhaps the gods really did abandon these temples and some kind of religious reality changed. It really is fascinating stuff to study.
Spends too much time looking at the white board image and his notes, not enough eye contact time. Wanders aimlessly around the room too much. Very distracting. Are the students learning anything? He never checks their learning. Poor presentation skills overall.
@@roboughton9843 lecturers talk give information Students listen make notes ask questions , then go back to the books on their chosen subject and write . I don't know what you expect of a lecturer , I found it easy enough to follow. I can't see why anyone wouldn't be able to learn .
1:50 Here is an exception to polytheistic religious tolerance: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” The chief gods of the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians and Hindus weren’t famously tolerant of each other, either. Nor were the ancient Romans tolerant of the Druidic religion.
Roman or Greek religion was very amusing, because Gods had the same weak character than humans, for example Dionysos ,the God of wine was very often drunk. The monotheist religions are very boring...
For the Record Christianity in Rome was (and still is - to some extent) a paganised version of the faith. They substituted their gods for saints and kept their pagan festivals using references in scripture to justify them as Christian. This will, someday, become common knowledge - so for now: let us respect the prophecy of apostasy.
I don’t know. He is a little bumbling I suppose. He covers a lot of material in detail but not in depth. I liked his explanation of “pagan” vs. “urban”. He’s not at all slick or familiar with tech or his material but he has good intuition
